We were also excited to introduce our speaker for this workshop, wellness creator, Miranda Popen. Miranda is a Tier 3 trainer at Equinox and was a professional figure skater who rode the diet roller coaster hoping to get that “perfect body”. She is passionate about helping women discover how they feel internally and how they move externally through nutrition, fitness, lifestyle and self care.

Our workout was then lead by Jennifer Lau from Fit Squad, a personal training and small group fitness training company located in downtown Toronto. Fit Squad is committed to delivering result-based training by bringing an unparalleled experience through a leading-edge methodology and exceptional coaching.

There's a new wave of weightlifting underway–and this time around, it includes women. What was once mostly reserved as a workout for men, has now made its way into the general health and wellness scene, with women in particular taking up an interest in strength-training to supplement their exercise routines. Even though weightlifting is recommended as integral to any adult's daily workout routine, women have rarely been pegged as weightlifters. Now, with a more mind-body approach, weightlifting is back on the radar for wellness enthusiasts everywhere. As women living in today's society, the pressure to live up to an unattainable standard of beauty has never been more intense. Our culture conditions us to strive for a fictionally perfect aesthetic, encouraging women to go on cruel diets and undertake gruelling workouts, fooling us into believing our healthy, capable bodies will never be enough.

We were also thankful to have Jake from Mid-Day Squares talk to us about their Montreal founded, raw superfood squares!